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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Self Acceptance - 200th Post

About eight years ago I unknowingly decided to begin forcing
myself upon myself; that was about the time that I began to fully dress as a
girl. At the time, it just seemed like
the thing I should do. Before then I had
dressed in various articles of women’s clothing and had done a variety of other
things, like paint my fingernails, but I had never tried to emulate a
woman. I began doing it because I wanted
to, but underneath it all, I was hiding.

This started to become apparent to me when I had the desire
to get out of the house, while fully dressed.
Before this point, my wife had been nothing but supportive of me. But this brought up unexpected concerns, for
the both of us. Jules expressed some
concerns about what I was doing, nothing unwarranted, but with each bit of
doubt she expressed the more I sought out her acceptance. I needed for her to accept me, all of me, and
for this I was willing to push myself onto her.
It is unfortunate that this occurred as it really never had anything to
do with her, it was really just me. I
needed for her to accept me just so that someone would.

I didn't really understand where I was at until one day, a
few years into fully dressing and going out in public, I saw my reflection in
the mirror while I was fully dressed. I
saw myself and in my head I heard myself say the word “freak.” I heard it as clearly as if someone said it
to me. And it made me stop and stare
deeply at myself in that mirror and I almost started to cry. It was right then that I realized that it was
I who did not accept myself.

Since that day, I have talked with Jules about it often, I
have read about gender variances, and I have dabbled in writing about it. And inside of me, I struggle with it almost
every single day. This is a good thing
though, because now I am the one who struggles with it. Now, I focus on accepting myself and I am no
longer concerned with whether or not others accept me. And the most amazing thing has begun to happen,
the more I accept myself, the more I find others to be accepting of me.

Now that I know who I am my wife is more accepting than she
has ever been. Every person I have
decided to share my gender variability with has been totally accepting of
me. And in fact even the general public
seems far more at ease with me and the more time goes on, the more people just
accept me to be whatever gender, or mix of genders, that I choose to present
as.

I encourage you all, as human beings, accept who you are.

I will caution you though.
Throughout my personal journey, I have not always enjoyed everything
that I have had to accept about myself.
But I have seen that only once I accept who I am can I do anything about
it. For me, exploring my gender variance
has brought me great personal growth, and harmed no one, so I have run with
it. Other things like having a massive
sugar tooth that can cause me to binge eat on desserts has been harmful, but
once I accepted that this is what I will most likely do, I have been able to
avoid it.

So, have fun, accept yourself, and be someone that when you
see your reflection in a mirror, tell yourself that you love who you are. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

Congratulation on your 200th post! It was 3 or 4 years ago that I decided that things needed to change in my life and that I needed to find self love and respect for myself. As you describe, once you take those steps it lays the ground work for so many positive experiences. Our attitude can have a huge impact in what positive or negative emotions come our way and how we handle those emotions. With self love, comes confidence in who we are, and with those in place it can attract the right kinds of people and friends in your life. Thanks for sharing and posting over the years, and keep on loving yourself and others.Much love, Katie

Thanks Katie. I so agree with your comments. Especially needing to find self love and respect for oneself. I find that so many in our community judge themselves so harshly that they end up hating themselves and what they consider to be abnormal desires.

Though we have never met IRL, I can sense a peace within you that is hard to find within the trans community.

Consider yourself lucky. I have experienced the opposite. Thus far nobody supports my gender issues. They say my feelings aren't wrong, but they would rather that I keep it hidden, stay in the closet, grow a beard, wait 18 years till the kids are out of the house to express it. I live in a fairly liberal area of the USA so I'm surprised in the response I've been getting.

I am sorry that you have received the responses that you have; that is unfortunate. I wish I knew what made some folks accepting and others not. It would be so much easier if all that it involved was saying to people, "oh you just have to say it this way, then everyone will accept you." All I know is what has worked for me, and honestly, I am not a big believer in luck.

Thanks for stopping by and adding your opinion, I appreciate all viewpoints! :)

With time we do tend to grow into being who we are. Your comfort level has several factors that you have developed over time. Everyone has to move at their own pace. Sometimes the pace is too slow and we do look back with regrets.

It really is amazing how knowing and then accepting who we are leads to others doing precisely the same thing. It's the most important thing we can do, for ourselves and our others. It's been the most difficult process of my life, and is ongoing, but I am beginning to see the rewards for my efforts.

Accepting myself has been a long struggle. It is something that I have to keep after, that I have to keep working on ... society bombards us with so many negative images, so many cruel misconceptions, that it doesn't seem to stick, and it is two steps forward and one step back.

But that is moving forward, isn't it? And the process has been aided and abetted by my getting "out and about" as Liz over the past few years, which has given me so much confidence and joy. There is nothing like conquering your fears to open up new avenues of self-acceptance.

Thank you so much Joanna. I don't know if I have ever mentioned this to you, but your blog is one of the ones I think about frequently and discuss frequently with my wife. your journey to self acceptance has been instrumental in assisting me with mine and so I thank you so much for sharing yours with us all. :)